Amazon’s business practices set a troubling precedent for its foray into pharmaceuticals
In recent news, Amazon has launched an online pharmacy. While this might be heralded by some as a savvy business decision (and it is) or even better value for their Amazon Prime subscription (and again, it is), that shouldn’t be the focus. Amazon doesn’t just want to be your bookstore or retail store; they aspire to be your ever-present, omnipresent everything — and health care is the next stop on their conquest. Their rapid expansion into different markets is unnerving, especially considering their history of grueling work conditions and aversion to paying taxes. Instead of hopping on the bandwagon right away, look into Amazon’s ethics and consider the alternatives.
Amazon as a company was started by Wall Street hedge fund executive Jeff Bezos in 1994, originally selling solely books. They quickly expanded to other products, diversifying their services to dominate the current e-commerce realm. Amazon is unique in that they aren’t a conglomerate — meaning their success hasn’t come from amassing and buying out smaller companies. Instead they’ve built themself on services like their retail end, web services side, and Prime loyalty program. The company’s taken advantage of technology in innovative ways, like using drones for delivery, creating Alexa, and developing the Kindle e-reader to promote their e-book front. Where brick-and-mortar stores have been slow to maneuver into the digital realm, Amazon built their entire foundation on it. They became big fast, and when they went public to investors there was no looking back.
Jeff Bezos’ net worth currently sits at around $184 billion. To fully understand just how much a billion is, if you saved $100 every single day without fail, it would take you 27,397 years just to accumulate $1 billion. It’s astronomical. There’s no way that Jeff Bezos achieved such a feat by relying on sound business ethics. Instead, Amazon makes money by exploiting workers — a mission statement they call “purposeful Darwinism,” as in it’s a dog-eat-dog world so, like, whatever. To invoke Darwinism in this way is to misinterpret natural selection — Darwin never meant you had to be the strongest and meanest to survive. By referring to their harsh and unfair labour conditions as Darwinism, Amazon implies they’re forcing their workforce to adapt — but to conditions they shouldn’t be subjected to. This “Darwinism” manifests in workers openly weeping after meetings, having to pack up to 700 items per hour, working through family emergencies like cancer or miscarriages, and risking a high chance of work-related injury. How will these business practices translate to an online pharmacy? If pharmacists are forced to check prescriptions as fast as warehouse workers pack shipments, it’s natural to worry about patient safety. If a prescription-related error does occur and someone gets hurt, it’s also easy to assume that Amazon will let their employees take the fall.
Another way Amazon hoards their profits is how they pay little to no federal taxes, at least in the U.S. And from 2016 to 2018, Amazon had a federal tax bill of a whopping $0, and in fact, for multiple years they received over $100 million in tax refunds. In 2019 they finally owed the American government money — a measly 1.2 per cent of their pre-tax income. The truth is that the average Amazon Prime subscriber pays more in taxes than this entire multi-billionaire megacorporation, and that’s just sad. Pharmaceutical giants have a similar trend of skipping out on taxes, despite how much they take from our pockets each year and overprice their drugs.
Amazon is right on par with Big Pharma in terms of business practices and borderline tax evasion, and that’s part of why their jump to the health-care sector is worrying. It’s natural to assume that Amazon won’t be satisfied to dip its toes into health care. If its pharmacy succeeds (and why wouldn’t it?), it follows that Amazon will delve further into pharmaceuticals. Big Pharma is no stranger to big scandals, and if Amazon is already downplaying the high injury rate in their warehouses, do we expect them to willingly own up to the inevitable health scandals they would be a part of? Amazon has immense market power, and if their executives wanted to, they could help shape the market in a positive way by using the company’s power to negotiate prices with drug companies and pass on savings to consumers. This is what Amazon’s pharmacy could be — an innovator of the market rather than just another greedy drug company. This is also what they’ll claim to be, but until we see the proof and the company’s ethics change with it, I’ll continue to keep a wary eye on Amazon’s health sector ventures.
So, what are the alternatives? Based out of Vancouver, PocketPills is a virtual pharmacy already on the market, and it’s even semi-local. This service allows Canadians to fill prescriptions, have them packaged, and get them delivered to their doorstep for free — just like what Amazon is offering. Otherwise, most brick-and-mortar pharmacies have online apps that allow you to manage your prescriptions online, and most also offer free delivery. If you’re looking for it, you can aim for a hands-off experience at the pharmacy you already frequent. When Amazon rolls out a new service, it has the benefit of an existing customer base and brand recognition, as well as the resources to advertise it, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t get the same products and services from providers who don’t exploit their workers and evade taxes, and who are less likely to undermine health-care regulations.
The reason why Amazon’s move to the health-care sector is particularly chilling is because, from the company’s history, we know their online pharmacy is not the end goal. They went from a bookstore to a retail titan in about a decade, and they show no signs of stopping. The drug industry alone is worth billions, and Amazon now has their foot in the door of Big Pharma where they could generate exponentially more profit. With their shady history of employee treatment, questionable business philosophy (and, cough cough, misinterpretation of Darwinism), as well as their dedication to finding tax loopholes, we could be witnessing the birth of another soulless health-care giant — but under a recognizable name that offers same-day shipping.
(Celina Koops/The Cascade)
Chandy is a biology major/chemistry minor who's been a staff writer, Arts editor, and Managing Editor at The Cascade. She began writing in elementary school when she produced Tamagotchi fanfiction to show her peers at school -- she now lives in fear that this may have been her creative peak.
